European Union Governance Quotes

Adding an overarching tier of tyrants - the EU - to European governments has benefited Europeans as a second hangman enhances the health of a condemned man.

The EU will face problems similar to the US: an increasing gap between the citizens and decision makers in Brussels and a perceived or even real lack of democracy.

Because with courage and conviction I believe we can deliver a more flexible, adaptable and open European Union in which the interests and ambitions of all its members can be met.

The Commission is extremely important. The E.U. without the Commission would not be the European Union.

European citizens expect that there will be also a fair system inside the European Union and in the euro, and that's why we have to have quite hard discipline.

It is national parliaments, which are, and will remain, the true source of real democratic legitimacy and accountability in the EU.

As Tony Blair has made clear, our fundamental challenge is how to make Europe work better.

I believe many people - especially small- and medium-sized enterprises across the European Union - are disenchanted with Europe because we haven't delivered the goods.

For Europe to play a part in the world on the scale of its wealth and its population and its capacities, Europe has to be united in some way, and Europe is not united.

The European Union Treaty... within a few years will lead to the creation of what the founding fathers of modern Europe dreamed of after the war, the United States of Europe.

European government is a clear expression I still use, you need time, but step by step, as in the Austrian case, the European Commission takes a political decision and behaves like a growing government.

I believe that the future for a more effective, more efficient way of approaching the challenges Europe is facing is going to be more properly and more effectively handled and seen through the member states.

For many people, politics in Brussels and Strasbourg might as well be happening on another planet.

It's my damn duty and obligation to do everything possible for Europe to find a united path.

But effective regulation at the European Union level can make a massive contribution to achieving our shared goals of improving competitiveness, jobs and growth.

Imagine a German as president of the European Commission. If he or she goes to some particular country and says do this or that, it won't be very well received. The president quickly ends up being the evil German. But if the president is elected by and controlled by 700 representatives from all EU countries, that legitimizes him or her in a very different way.

We need to have a bigger and more significant role for national parliaments. There is not, in my view, a single European demos.

When I saw how the European Union was developing, it was very obvious what they had in mind was not democratic. In Britain, you vote for a government so the government has to listen to you, and if you don't like it you can change it.

The European Union is a union of the extreme center. It's a banker's union. You see how they operate in country after country, appointing technocrats to take over and run countries for long periods. They did it in Greece; they did it in Italy; they considered it in other parts of Europe.

The EU must be able to act with the speed and flexibility of a network, not the cumbersome rigidity of a bloc.

We need to move forward, from the common currency to the banking union to a common financial policy and, in the middle-term, to a common foreign and security policy. That will take time, because we need to figure out how to deal with those countries that don't always want a more tightly integrated European Union.

Implementing parts of European constitution and leaving out others - without knowing where we're going - isn't an option. That would be detrimental to the overall balance, which is why we must embark on another comprehensive discussion of the issue once again. I would like to see Europe retain the idea of a constitution in the end, and I plan to campaign on its behalf.

I'm fully aware that my vision of a European bicameral parliament can't be implemented tomorrow. I'm also not an integration fanatic.

Our biggest threat is not too much Europe, but too little.

Effectively, the EU is a very powerful bureaucracy, dominated now by the German elite, which is backed by the rest of the European Union members.